Casey Ruggles

Warren Tufts is one those rare artist‘s artists, hugely admired by his fellow creators. Tufts’ assistants were another talented list: Al Plastino (Superman artist), Edmond Good, Alex Toth, and the super DC creator Ruben Moreira. Tufts is not so well known to the public today, but this small body of work–and then his next project, Lance– captured devoted admiration from fans AND other creators, for quality stories AND quality artwork. Casey Ruggles is a smart and brave adventurer, in and out of scrapes with nefarious villains and beautiful women. Casey Ruggles appeared in American newspapers from May 2, 1949 to October 30, 1955. The story is that this was actually optioned for television when westerns were so popular in the early and mid-1950s. But the syndicate, which owned the rights, was either reluctant to have a TV series “compete” with the strip–sheer stupidity when considered today–or they simply wanted too much and the TV folks walked away. In any case, Warren Tufts was working his heart out on this strip and was suitably unhappy to have the syndicate spoil a lucrative licensing deal. So he left the strip, formed his own syndicate, and began Lance, which would become his magnum opus and in fact was squarely influenced by Hal Foster’s magnificent work on Prince Valiant. And the amazing thing is, Lance actually captured the same quality of storytelling, panoramic art, and heroic yet human characters as Prince Valiant! Tufts was a brilliant and hard-working creator, who really knew how to make a must-read strip. Lance once again taxed his ability to do it all himself, and he finally gave it up to leave the comics field for more lucrative areas. But he left behind two fabled, legendary, much-admired strips that collectors have sought after ever since I can remember. This strip is unique in that it started as a Sunday only, then added a daily to the Sunday storyline on September 19, 1949, only to split the Sunday and daily storylines into their own continuities on January 9, 1951. For volume 1 the first 34 Sundays are printed in glorious color until the daily and Sunday continuities split, followed by dailies to October 30, 1955. Aside from some brief Pacific Comics Club reprints many years ago, this fine strip has never before been collected.